Carrier route record
AADTW→DFW
American Airlines · Detroit to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,621
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 46%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on DTW to DFW sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 1,621 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on DTW to DFW from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,563 completed flights
Avg delay
92 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.71%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.3%
Every carrier on DTW to DFW, 3,509 flights
These figures cover 1,621 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on DTW to DFW
American flew 1,621 of the 3,509 flights on DTW to DFW, about 46% of it. Its 75.9% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 75.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 94.7% to Frontier at 59.8%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 19 | 94.7% | 136 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 237 | 77.7% | 62 min | 1.27% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,405 | 76.3% | 57 min | 1.71% | B |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,621 | 75.9% | 92 min | 2.71% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 227 | 59.8% | 85 min | 3.52% | D− |
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on DTW to DFW
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 29 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am529 flights85.7%
- 8am–11am72 flights87.1%
- 11am–2pm389 flights81.8%
- 2pm–5pm308 flights67.7%
- 5pm–8pm323 flights58.0%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 58.0% on time, against 87.1% for the 8am–11am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 529 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on DTW to DFW through the year
December is the weak month at 64.0% on time, against 84.7% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. May was the busiest month here, with 150 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 79.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.8%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 34,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 34,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 34,460 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 87.1% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.71%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 986 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 67.5% on time across 1,621 flights, 8 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,621 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
What to do with this
Booking American on DTW to DFW
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 84.7% on time and December 64.0%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,563 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to DFW, every carrier
- American on DFW to DTW, the return leg
- Spirit Airlines on DTW to DFW77.7%
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to DFW76.3%
- Frontier Airlines on DTW to DFW59.8%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.